Jana Chamonikolasov, Martin Adam, Irena Headlandov Kalischov

On concatenative and nonconcatenative

lexeme-formation patterns in English

Ale Klgr (Prague)

ABSTRACT
The paper borrows the concept of (non)concatenation from morphology and applies it to word-
formation patterns both within and outside the scope of derivational morphology, arguing at the same
time for a broader, lexicological approach to lexeme-formation (as a model of vocabulary expansion)
than that identifying word-formation with derivational morphology. It arrives at the conclusion that
the binary division of lexeme-formation into either concatenative or nonconcatenative patterns
OPEN ACCESS

does not reflect the character of many patterns accurately enough.

KEYWORDS
word-formation, derivational morphology, lexeme-formation pattern, concatenative, nonconcatenative

Men ever had, and ever will have leave,

To coin new words well suited to the age,
Words are like leaves, some wither every year,
And every year a younger race succeeds.

Horace, poet and satirist (658 BCE), Ars Poetica,

transl. by Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon (1680)

1. INTRODUCTION

When it comes to the description of lexicon innovation, it is usual to speak of

word-formation, although it has been repeatedly pointed out that lexeme-formation
is a more appropriate term (in order to exclude inflectional morphology; cf Bauer,
2004; Kastovsky, 2009; Haspelmath, Sims, 2010, and others). Offering a much broader
perspective, Mathesius (1929, 1975) introduces the concept of functional onomatol-
ogy, a study of linguistic denomination (the semantic activity of giving names to con-
cepts which precedes the syntactic activity of bringing the names into mutual rela-
tions). From this point of view, formation of words is subsumed under a wider notion
of name formation (a naming unit expressing a concept may consist of more than one
word; cf. Vachek, 2003, 163).
The fact that a new lexeme may not be a single word, but a multiple-word ex-
pression, that it may not be a morphologically complex word, but a simplex coinage,
that it may not be formed by a morphological rule at all, indicates that just replacing
the term word-formation with lexeme-formation does not resolve the problem of
the limited reach of word-formation conceived as (part of) morphology. This narrow
90LINGUISTICA PRAGENSIA 2/2015

view of word-formation under morphology is echoed in Lieber and tekauer (2014, 3):
The term word formation refers to the creation of new lexemes in a language and is
generally said to be composed of compounding and derivation. Both compounding
and derivation (to which conversion is usually added) are nowadays occasionally de-
scribed in terms of (non)concatenation. The following is an attempt to follow through
the application of the morphological concept of (non)concatenation to lexeme-for-
mation in the broader, lexicological sense, which includes processes that go beyond
the formation of mere words and beyond morphology, inasmuch as the mechanisms
of creating lexical items include much more than just the regular morphological
mechanisms of derivation and composition; they also comprise, for instance, bor-
rowing and onomatopoeia (Geeraerts, 1994, 2190), to which others, such as semantic
shifting, can be added.

2. (NON)CONCATENATION IN MORPHOLOGY

Matthews (1991, 130144), among others, recognizes two main types of morphologi-
cal processes: the addition of an independent formative, and an internal change or
a modification (either total or partial) of the base. According to him, the first type
includes prefixation, suffixation and infixation, and apparently also reduplication;
processes of the second type which he mentions include vowel change, suppletion,
accent or tonal patterns, and subtraction. (In contrast to the prevailing view, he treats
compounding as distinct from word-formation, in that compounding is a lexical pro-
cess which derives lexemes from lexemes, not from forms, although he finds paral-
lels with word-formation.)
Subsequently the two types have come to be termed concatenative and noncon-
catenative processes. Thus, for instance, Haspelmath and Sims (2010, 3440) speak of
two basic types of morphological patterns: concatenative, which is when two mor-
phemes are ordered one after the other, and nonconcatenative, which is everything
else. They identify concatenative patterns with affixation and compounding. As far
as nonconcatenative patterns are concerned, they distinguish [o]ne important class
of non-concatenative patterns, base modification (or stem modification/alterna-
tion), a collective term for morphological patterns in which the shape of the base
is changed without adding segmentable material. It subsumes changes of place of
articulation (palatalization, fronting), changes of manner of articulation (weakening
of consonants, fricativization), changes of quantity (lengthening, e.g., gemination,
or the shortening of stem vowels), and also tonal change and stress shift. In addition,
Haspelmath and Sims place three more processes of inflectional morphology under
base modification: subtraction (truncation or deletion of segments from the base),
metathesis (rearrangement of segments within the base) and reduplication (part of
the base or the complete base is copied and attached to the base), although the last
one with certain reservations. They also point out that just as description of affixation
involves specifications as to which morphemes may combine, i.e. the combinatory
potential of the affix, so are nonconcatenative patterns subject to restrictions equiv-
alent to the combinatory potential in concatenative patterns.
ale klgr91

While concatenation is generally not a moot point, this is not true of noncon-
catenative morphology (a term used by McCarthy, 1981; see also Carstairs-McCarthy
1992, 80). The current developments in (autosegmental, prosodic) morphology and
phonology in combination with the Optimality Theory approach take a dim view of
nonconcatenation as a morphological process. Davis and Tsujimura (in Lieber, teka-
uer, 2014, 190192) point out that the definition of nonconcatenative morphology is
not uncontroversial and explain why. Bye and Svenonius (2012, 429430) introduce
the concatenative ideal in which morphemes are linearly ordered (i.e. with no over-
lapping), contiguous (i.e. no discontinuity), additive (i.e. no subtraction), preserved
when additional morphemes are added, segmentally autonomous (context-free) and
disjoint from each other (i.e. no haplology). Nonconcatenative patterns are then usu-
ally defined negatively as phenomena that fall short of this ideal, patterns in which
the phonological instantiation of a morpheme cannot be demarcated in an output
representation (cf. Kurisu, 2001, 2). Bye and Svenonius, for one, conclude that there
is no nonconcatenative morphology, only nonconcatenative effects; that all morphol-
ogy is concatenative, and nonconcatenative morphology is only an epiphenomenon.
Similarly Trommer (2012, 2) rejects Matthews position that nonconcatenative mor-
phology is the result of genuinely morphological processes in favour of the view that
it is basically a phonological phenomenon (cf. also Lieber, 1992).
The differences in defining nonconcatenative morphology are reflected in disa-
greement on the inclusion of some processes among nonconcatenative processes.
Thus, while Davies and Tsujimura (in Lieber and tekauer 2014, 190-192) regard infix-
ation as concatenative (infixes have consistent phonemic content and can usually
be clearly demarcated), other authors see it as a nonconcatenative pattern (Kurisu,
2001, Carstairs-McCarthy, 1992, and others). Similarly inflectional reduplication (part
of the base or the complete base is copied and attached to the base) is regarded as
concatenative, for instance, by Marantz (1982), but as nonconcatenative by Inkelas
(in Lieber, tekauer, 2014) and others. Haspelmath and Sims, too, believe it has more
in common with nonconcatenative gemination or vowel lengthening than affixal con-
catenation. The nonconcatenative nature of other processes, such as autosegmental
affixation (marking a morphological category by a distinctive feature or tone added
to the base), subtraction or templatic operations, is generally accepted.

3. WORD-FORMATION IN MORPHOLOGY

Subsuming word-formation under morphology in effect determines which lex-

eme-formation processes will be legitimate morphological patterns, and which pat-
terns will be excluded as having questionable morphological status, although they
also create new lexemes in language. Thus Haspelmath and Sims (2010: 3440) il-
lustrate morphological nonconcatenation only by examples from inflectional mor-
phology because word-formation processes other than concatenative affixation and
compounding are seen by them either as the limiting case of a morphological pattern
(conversion) or as being outside the scope of morphology proper (formation of ac-
ronyms, alphabetisms, clippings and blends). Conversion does not exactly fit their
92LINGUISTICA PRAGENSIA 2/2015

conception of a morphological pattern (defined as partial resemblance in form and

meaning among groups of words) either because of the identity of form between
base and derivative. Blends, clippings, acronyms and alphabetisms are excluded from
morphology by them because the resulting new words do not have different mean-
ings to the longer words from which they are formed.
The rejection of clipping, acronymization, abbreviation and blending on semantic,
rather than morphological, grounds is somewhat surprising (even if blends which by
definition have different meanings from their constituent words are left aside). There
are acronyms (laser, scuba) whose corresponding longer words have probably never
appeared in speech and are practically unknown to native speakers, and so exist only
in their shorter form. As regards clipping, Bauer (2006, 498) observes that [C]lip-
ping does not create lexemes with new meanings, but lexemes with a new stylistic
value. According to Plag (2003, 117) this raises the question of what exactly we mean
when we say that a word-formation process should add new meaning to a base,
thereby creating a new lexeme. Do we consider the expression of attitude a new
meaning? Or only as a minor modulation in usage? He answers the question by ac-
cepting a notion of word-formation wide enough to accommodate even clippings
as products of word-formation. (In a way a decision to treat two bases as different
lexical items on account of their different evaluative meaning, or any other type of
connotative meaning, is reminiscent of a distinction made between near synonyms.)
The latest treatment of derivation (derivational morphology) appears in a hand-
book edited by Lieber and tekauer (2014). The contributing authors address both
concatenative derivation, i.e. affixation (Bauer), and nonconcatenative derivation,
reduplication (Inkelas), and other nonreduplicative processes (Davis, Tsujimura),
although most of the examples involve inflectional morphology (declension, conju-
gation) and very little of derivation proper (formation of hypocoristics). The chapter
on conversion (Valera) includes only a passing reference to its (non)concatenative
character (Olsen, 1990), and the latest book on compounding (Lieber, tekauer, 2009)
does not invoke the concept of concatenation at all.
The problem of morphological status of word-formation processes is handled dif-
ferently by authors. While Bauer (2004, 113) speaks of processes which are less ob-
viously morphological, such as blending, clipping, the creation of acronyms, and the
like, and uses the label lexical for them, some authors stress the different character
of these processes by introducing special terms. Lpez Ra (2006) uses the term non-
morphological word formation by which he means shortening of two types, splin-
ter-based clippings (lab, phone), and letter-based initialisms, i.e. alphabetisms (NBC)
and acronyms (laser), and word manufacture. Mattiello (2008) speaks of extra-gram-
matical morphological operations, etc.
Word-formation processes as (derivational) morphology are not very often subject
to explicit classification when referring to English (or to languages in general) and are
usually simply listed. One example of such general classification is Fleischers (2000),
which operates with five basic categories: Kombination von Stmmen, Affigierung,
Substitution, Subtraktion, and Konversion. A more recent example of a cross-linguis-
tic approach to word-formation typology is tekauer et al. (2012). Using questionnaire-
and grammar-based data on 55 languages in their effort to develop a typology of lan-
ale klgr93

guages in terms of their word-formation characteristics, the authors distinguish four

basic categories: word-formation processes combining free morphemes (compound-
ing, including compounding with word-formation base modification, reduplication,
blending), word-formation processes combining free and bound morphemes (affixa-
tion), word-formation without addition of derivational material (conversion, word-for-
mation by internal modification) and subtractive word-formation (back-formation).

4. WORD-FORMATION TYPOLOGIES IN LEXICOLOGY

By contrast, both morphological and lexical word-formation processes are equally

represented when word-formation is approached as an independent area of study
constituting, together with several others, the domain of lexicology in the European
tradition. Hence word-formation typologies constructed from the lexicological per-
spective tend to be more varied and structured. A selection of English word-forma-
tion typologies is reviewed by Stein (2000), who notes that while there is broad agree-
ment about which types of word-formation are characteristic of English, the authors
differ in the sets of types postulated and often their criteria are not clear. She also
finds that the typological classifications depend on specific linguistic theories and in-
creasingly take into account the structure of the whole vocabulary.
She starts with Hans Marchand, a seminal figure in English word-formation.
Marchand (1969, 12) explicitly recognizes the different morphological status of
word-formation patterns by setting up two major groups of words (each realized by
five types of processes): words formed as grammatical syntagmas, i.e. combinations
of full linguistic signs (compounding, prefixation, suffixation, derivation by a zero
morpheme and back-formation) and words which are not grammatical syntagmas
(i.e. not made up of full linguistic signs: expressive symbolism, blending, clipping,
rime and ablaut gemination and word manufacture). Common to both groups is that
the new word is based on a synchronic relationship between morphemes. The prob-
lem with the term syntagma is that if we want to use the adjective syntagmatic, its
logical opposite in the Saussurean sense is paradigmatic rather than nonsyntagmatic.
Also the next classification discussed by Stein remarks on the difference between
the morphological and lexicological perspectives. It appears in Quirk et al. (1985;
Appendix I Word-formation) and starts by defining word-formation as an area in
which grammar and lexicology share a common ground, containing both generali-
ties and idiosyncracies. Accordingly, the authors distinguish between the four main
types, prefixation, suffixation, conversion and compounding, whose aspects most
resemble the regularities of grammar and are most closely interrelated with them
(p. 1530), and the remaining processes, i.e. back-formation, reduplicatives, abbrevi-
ations (clippings, acronyms), blends, and familiarity markers, which are dealt with
at the end under Miscellaneous modes (Marchands expressive symbolism and word
manufacture are omitted).
The third classification Stein examines is Algeos (1991) system which he used to
describe neologisms appearing between 1941 and 1991. Algeo identifies six basic et-
ymological sources (with a number of subtypes): creating (word manufacture and
94LINGUISTICA PRAGENSIA 2/2015

sound words, imitative, echoic and onomatopoetic), borrowing (simple, adapted,

calques), combining (prefixation, suffixation and compounding), shortening (clip-
ping, alphabetism, acronymy, back-formation, phonetic elision, i.e. unintentional
aphesis, apocope, syncope), blending (with clipped first or second element, with
both elements clipped, with overlapping sounds), shifting (of grammar, i.e. conver-
sion: a guest > to guest; of meaning: specialization, generalization, metaphor, meton-
ymy; of form: toy boy > boy toy, Gray > yarg, Jesus > jeepers; of circumstances: stylistic
transfer combined with shift of form, e.g. dialectal stomp becoming an alternative to
standard stamp), and, finally, source unknown. Stein focuses on Algeos categories
that coincide with standard processes, combining, shortening, blending and two of
the shifting subtypes, of meaning and grammar, but dismisses shifting of form (i.e.,
arbitrary changes of the phonetic structure of the word) as an unsatisfactory sub-
group and shifting of circumstances. Her objections to Algeos classification concern
its diachronic bias, the lack of focus on the pattern aspect and the lack of distinction
between processes at different levels.
In this respect she prefers Tourniers (1988) outline of matrices lexicogniques pre-
sented in Table 1. She appreciates his distinction between internal and external
sources of lexical expansion and his hierarchical model of internal sources with sev-
eral levels of description and generalization. Using what might be called a semiotic
categorization, Tournier distinguishes three types of neology, morpho-semantic, se-
mantic and morphological, according to which aspect of the linguistic sign (form and
meaning) changes, and to each type assigns the process(es) effecting the change. Stein
identifies the following weaknesses in his model: the formal aspect sometimes over-
rides the semantic effects of the operations (e.g. in juxtaposition and amalgamation);
both functional change (conversion) and meaning change (metaphorisation, meton-
ymy) also involve a change in grammatical behaviour; a reduction in form may affect
only part of the morpheme and so, she claims, instead of morphological neology the
term form neology should be used. There are other objections we could make, such as
that the model omits manufacture, or that it lumps together construction and sound
imitation although their morpho-semantic neology is due to vastly different pro-
cesses, that transposing construction involves a change in grammatical behaviour, etc.
Steins own typology (Table 2) uses Tourniers model as the primary starting point but
adds several improvements: she refines and incorporates both his internal-external dis-
tinction (formation-importation; the latter extended by the appellativization of proper
names) and the semiotic criterion, differentiating between three facets, form, meaning
and grammar. In her model of vocabulary expansion processes she circumscribes the
real domain of word-formation [] where there is the strongest correlation in form,
grammar and meaning: constructing and shifting (p. 100). The fact that nonconcatena-
tive shifting is definitely not seen as the real domain in word-formation as morphol-
ogy underlines the difference between the morphological and the lexical approach.
Lack of general consensus on the status or definition of particular word-forma-
tion processes and the relations between them is not limited only to English. The
same situation obtains in the descriptions of other languages too, as the results of
Hormigos (2011) analysis for Spanish suggest. Differences in theoretical starting
points, terminology and its usage are certainly a problem, and so typological claims
ALE KLGR 95

table 1: Tourniers matrices lexicogniques

table 2: Steins model of vocabulary expansion

about word-formation in individual languages and even more so typological compari-

sons of different languages have to be taken with caution.

5. THE USE OF (NON)CONCATENATIVE CATEGORIES IN WORD-FORMATION

Although the idea of nonconcatenative morphological processes is questioned by cur-

rent trends in morphology, it has begun to crop up in recent descriptions of word-for-
mation as morphology and as part of lexicology alike. tekauer (2005), for instance,
96LINGUISTICA PRAGENSIA 2/2015

contrasts his onomasiological approach to word-formation with the traditional clas-

sification of word formation processes [] exclusively based on formal criteria, such
as extending vs. reducing the stem (word formation base), i.e., concatenative vs. non-
concatenative processes; combination of two stems vs. stem + bound morpheme vs.
internal stem modification; etc.
Similarly, Fuster and Snchez (2008) base their description of English word-for-
mation (which they see as part of morphology most directly related to lexicology)
explicitly on (non)concatenation. They find two basic word building operations at
a formal level: concatenative word-formation processes (the combination of mor-
phemes in strings), exemplified by derivation and compounding, and nonconcat-
enative word-formation processes (phonological alterations such as reduction of
the base, or no change of the base at all, making morphemic segmentation difficult).
They identify three important nonconcatenative processes in Modern English: con-
version, back-formation and shortening (e.g. television > TV, telly). They also observe
that word-formation is not the only way vocabulary is augmented and mention bor-
rowing, semantic change and root creation.
Reference to (non)concatenation can also be found in descriptions of word-forma-
tion in non-Indo-European languages. Kageyama (2014) applies the concept to Japa-
nese and speaks of a wealth of concatenative and nonconcatenative word formation
processes that produce complex words by compounding, affixation, conversion, in-
flection, blending, clipping, and other mechanisms, which are often conditioned by
differences of lexical strata.

6. CATEGORIZATION OF LEXEME-FORMATION PATTERNS

IN TERMS OF (NON)CONCATENATION

From the lexicological perspective and given that lexeme formation only partially
overlaps with morphology, the issue of whether nonconcatenative operations have
a place in morphology or whether they are a phonological phenomenon is not of
much relevance. On the other hand, the formal categorization of lexeme-formation
processes according to (non)concatenation is an attractive idea for several reasons.
It has great reach and may probably cover all of lexeme-formation (vocabulary ex-
pansion) and help cluster lexeme-formation patterns in a meaningful way. The fact
that (non)concatenation is a purely formal criterion has its advantages (compared to
the semiotic criterion which combines form, meaning and function at once). It may
accommodate operations that have not been systematically included in lexeme for-
mation yet (e.g. various types of creation; cf. Steins rejection of arbitrary shifting of
form mentioned by Algeo) and easily allows for crosscategorization, i.e. identifica-
tion of processes involving two different principles of formation. Concatenation also
appears to naturally separate prototypical morphological rule-governed formation
from less rule-governed or downright arbitrary nonconcatenative lexical patterns.
We have seen that concatenation is typically described as the addition of an inde-
pendent formative, when two morphemes are ordered one after the other (Haspel-
math, Sims above), etc., or in a more sophisticated way in terms of the concatena-
ALE KLGR 97

tive ideal (see Bye and Svenonius above). Nonconcatenation is characterized as an

internal change or a modification of the base (viz Matthews), stem alteration, absence
of clear demarcation of a morpheme, no change of the base at all, etc., or simply nega-
tively as everything else (Haspelmath, Sims above) which is not concatenation. It
is possible to paraphrase the two categories as additive processes and non-additive
processes. This conception is sufficiently general to allow categorization of lexeme-
formation not only within morphology, but to encompass the whole of vocabulary ex-
pansion (cf. Mathesius idea of name formation), both rule-governed and arbitrarily
creative, not restricted to single-word level or internal sources. The following dia-
gram is my own attempt at a tentative outline of lexeme-formation categorized from
the (non)concatenation perspective:

figure 1: Lexeme-formation categorized from the (non)concatenation perspective

The seven basic types subsume several subtypes: 1. base-ax addition (lexical der-
ivation: prefixation, suffixation; base stands for word or stem); 2. base-base ad-
dition: compounding (word-word: windmill; stem-word: astrophysics; stem-stem: as-
tronaut); reduplication (go-go, no-no, bling-bling, hubba-hubba), repeating the whole
unchanged base; 3. (syntactic) word-word addition: multiword units or phrasemes,
both idiomatic and non-idiomatic (private soldier); 4. base alteration: shorten-
ing clipping (lab, temp), initialisms (TV); back slang (yob, redraw [warder]); arbi-
trary sound alterations created for euphemizing, jocular, slang purposes, etc. (Jesus
> jeepers, lord > lawks, lud, pesty >pesky, yep, gansta), metathesis (girdle < griddle), etc.
Many such alterations are found under the lexicographic ragbag term corruption
(cf. Bauer, 1994, Klgr, 1999, 2010); 5. base shiing (grammatical: conversion; se-
mantic: meaning extension, specialization, generalization); 6. form/sense importa-
tion (borrowing, interlingual, interdialectal; antonomasia: titan, ampere, guinea); 7.
word creation (unmotivated, ex nihilo; motivated, onomatopoeic). However, the as-
signment of patterns to the concatenative or the nonconcatenative category is not
98LINGUISTICA PRAGENSIA 2/2015

without problems. Reduplicative compounds seem to be more clearly concatenative

unlike inflectional reduplication (though see below). The placement of conversion
apparently depends on the authors theoretical position: it has been interpreted as
combinatorial or concatenative (cf. Olsen, 1990, following Marantz use of autoseg-
mental phonology) or non-concatenative (Lieber, 1981; a view subsequently adopted
even by Olsen) in parallel to treating conversion either as zero derivation or as relist
ing (Lieber, 1992).
Observations such as Steins (2000, 98) that the lexical operations carried out
with linguistic material already in existence are quite complex and they may over-
lap, or Bauers (2003, 14) that various word-formation processes appear to blend
into each other and not have clear-cut boundaries between them do appear, but are
rarely, if at all, followed up (Mhleisens (2010) heterogeneity of word-formation pat-
terns is a different matter). Actually it is possible to point out three types of cross-cut-
ting categories, i.e. overlapping or combined patterns: (i) combinations of different
concatenative patterns, (ii) combinations of different nonconcatenative patterns, and
(iii) combinations of both concatenative and nonconcatenative patterns.
Concatenative pattern combinations typically include formations combin-
ing compounding and affixation (affix compounds: green-eyed, bus-driver; combin-
ing-form + affix: anthrop-oid, cephal-ic, mal-ware). Nonconcatenative pattern com-
binations are found in operations such as accent / accent, use [s]/to use [z] (base
alteration [voicing or stress shift] + shifting), alternatively subsumed under conver-
sion (Quirk et al., 1985) or excluded from it (Bauer and Huddleston, 2002). We also
find them in some cases of word ellipsis (shortening + grammatical and semantic
shift: private soldier > a private). Also importation, i.e. borrowing (both interlingual
and interdialectal), is often accompanied by base alteration (cockroach < cucaracha).
However, the largest number of multiple combinations is probably between con-
catenative-noncatenative patterns. The most conspicuous instances are blending
(back and/or front clipping + compounding, semantically similar to copulative com-
pounds: smog, dogopus) and related clipped compounding (sitcom), acronymy (Nato)
and alphabetical abbreviation (NBC), all involving subtraction/ back clipping + ad-
dition of the resulting initial letters to form a single word from a multiple-word term,
and embellished clipping (shortening + affixation: telly, preggers, journo). Some embel-
lished clippings, moreover, involve shortening, affixation and occasionally respelling
and assimilation (husband > hubby, umbrella > brolly, Barbara > Babs). Base modification
(sound i.e. rime and ablaut motivated) is typical of most cases of reduplication
(combination of the same base + base modification: ding-dong). Also there is a special
case of derogatory reduplication which can be interpreted as combining either with
base modification (culture-schmulture, theory-shmeory) or prefixation (income-shmin-
come, introspector-shmintrospector, envy-shmenvy). A rather problematic is the position
of back-derivation and word ellipsis which could be described as concatenation in
reverse, i.e. on the one hand they involve removal of material (subtraction), on the other
hand both processes respect morphemic boundaries, which is symptomatic of concat-
enative patterns. An interesting pattern is presented by so-called rhyming slang. In
this operation a word is initially replaced by a word combination (concatenation) and
subsequently shortened to a single word again (ellipsis: lie > slang porky pie > porky).
ale klgr99

There are no doubt many other instances of an intricate interweaving of concat-

enative and nonconcatenative features. For instance, so-called string or (de)phrasal
compounding in which syntactic units such as phrases or even clauses are used as
clause elements (typically modifiers, but also verbs, to short-change, and nouns, No
more I love yous) is usually assigned to compounding (base addition), although the
frozen string evidently undergoes grammatical shift (nonconcatenative operation).
Sometimes the string is sentence-long and the operation is more than anything rem-
iniscent of Liebers relisting: First of all, that I-only-did-it-because-you-left-and-I-missed-
you-and-wanted-to-feel-special-even-if-for-a-moment line is a crock of shit. Similarly, moti-
vated word creation (onomatopoeic words) which typically involves interjections
is frequently associated with conversion (woof > n, v) or repetition (concatenation:
woof woof, blah blah blah). If anything, as far as lexeme-formation is concerned (and
contrary to standard presentation in morphology), a closer look suggests that simple
concatenative and nonconcatenative patterns are endpoints on a continuum with
variously mixed patterns in between. The feature of (non)concatenation is clearly of
a scalar nature which is hardly surprising given that scalarity pervades language, cf.
Kastovskys (2009) scale of (patterns with) progressively less independent constitu-
ents (word letter): compounding (word) > stem compounding (stem) > affixoids
> affixation proper (word-/stem-based) > clipping compounds (clipping of words/
stems) > blending > splinters > acronyms.

7. CONCLUSION

The paper draws attention to the feature of (non)concatenation as a descriptive tool

which has been recently referred to in connection with word-formation with in-
creasing frequency. It traces the views and use of (non)concatenation in morphology
where it has been applied to both inflectional and derivational processes. It argues
that word-formation or, more appropriately, lexeme-formation regarded as synony-
mous with derivational morphology (cf. tekauer et al., 2012: 1) is too narrow because
formation of new lexemes is not restricted to words or to morphological processes
only. In fact, word-formation as morphology and lexeme-formation as part of lexicol-
ogy have overlapping but not identical agendas. The paper focuses on the application
of the (non)concatenation criterion even to operations which are considered lexical
rather than morphological, and in this sense prefers the lexicological approach to lex-
eme-formation to the morphological one.
(Non)Concatenation is a powerful concept in that it points to the manner in which
naming takes place at the most fundamental level: by stringing forms together or
by manipulating their shape. The feature of noncatenation is particularly helpful
in bringing together a number of form shifts that otherwise give the impression of
a disjointed medley. The aim of the paper was to show that the typological application
of this criterion so far confined as it has been to binary classification is not con-
sistent enough. It appears that many, if not most, patterns are not just simply concat-
enative or non-concatenative, but involve a combination of two (or more) operations
simultaneously (either in principle or as a frequent variation). Most typically we find
100LINGUISTICA PRAGENSIA 2/2015

patterns integrating both a concatenative and a nonconcatenative operation at once

(such as shortening + addition in blending, acronymy, or embellished clipping). There
are also patterns in which two distinct operations of the same type participate, i.e.
concatenative-concatenative patterns (compounding + affixation) or nonconcatena-
tive-nonconcatenative (conversion + base alteration). The existing disagreements
about the (non)concatenative nature of some processes (reduplication and conver-
sion) make no difference about this. The conclusion is that lexeme-formation patterns
form a cline from purely concatenative to purely non-concatenative ones with mixed
patterns in between. This is in keeping with both the scalarity of language phenom-
ena in general and the observation of how incredibly variable the formation of ne-
ologisms is, ranging from default productive, rule-governed patterns to creative,
non-productive, analogy-based and unruly playful formations.
An interesting thing about the distinction between concatenative and nonconcat-
enative patterns is that it broadly correlates with the basic functions of lexeme-for-
mation. Of the two general functions usually recognized, (concept) naming and syn-
tactic recategorization (for a brief summary see, for instance, Hohenhaus, 2007), to
which a third one must be added, that of meeting social needs (such as to introduce
an element of novelty, to raise attention, to connote an attitude or stylistic value, to
establish or reinforce ones social identity, etc.), concept naming appears to be largely
fulfilled by concatenative patterns (compounding, derivation), the social function is
prototypically met by nonconcatenative patterns (base modification, shortening) and
syntactic recategorization is effected by both concatenative and nonconcatenative
patterns (transpositional derivation, back-derivation and conversion, i.e. if we accept
conversion as a nonconcatenative process). While social naming typically produces
stylistically marked formations (e.g. clippings, blends) and concept naming is usually
neutral, syntactic recategorization seems to produce both stylistically marked and
unmarked neologisms. However desirable it would be to complement formal typol-
ogies of lexeme-formation with a functional aspect, the fact is, to quote Hohenhaus,
that [T]he functional side of word-formation is often regarded as an understudied
area of the field.

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